Heart And Soul
by coloursflyaway
Summary: Will has known it for weeks. Probably longer, without realising, because he still can't pinpoint the exact moment when he had found out, or what exactly gave it away, if it was something in the older man's smile, the way he had brushed dirty blonde hair out of his face, something about the gaze he had allowed to linger on Will.


Will has known it for weeks. Probably longer, without realising, because he still can't pinpoint the exact moment when he had found out, or what exactly gave it away, if it was something in the older man's smile, the way he had brushed dirty blonde hair out of his face, something about the gaze he had allowed to linger on Will. Something about Hannibal, or maybe something about Will, which had finally made everything click together.

It makes sense though, a lot of sense, and ever since he has known, it's easy to see why things just seemed off about cases sometimes, too perfect or not perfect enough. Because it had always been Hannibal killing, not Nicholas Boyle, not some unknown man unwittingly named the Chesapeake Ripper.  
It fits so well that it is hard to believe it has taken him so long.  
Maybe, Will figures, it was because he didn't want to know, didn't want to realise it, not when he had finally found one person who did not treat him like a tool, but like a person with a talent instead of a talent which unfortunately needed a person as a vessel.  
He still doesn't want to, he can feel how every atom in his body is trying to forget, to deny, to find a way to prove to himself that there is no way Hannibal could be responsible for all this gruesomeness.  
It doesn't work, of course, not even for the blissful, short moment he would need so much.

Sometimes, before he goes to sleep, he wonders what else Hannibal has done, which other killer, which other _killers_, are actually all the same person, someone who he has been dancing around for months now, teasing and testing waters, pushing and being pushed in return although neither of them seems to be sure if they are pushing themselves closer or further away from each other. They are going to crash and burn, Will knew that before, and is completely certain of it now.

The worst, the strangest thing of all, though, is that Will still hasn't told the police, hasn't told Jack. He should, and he knows that, but somehow it seems impossible to do so; he's tried, but in the crucial moment, no words came out of his mouth.  
It would be the right thing to do, and yet thinking about walking up to Jack and telling him that he knows who killed Miriam, who killed Marissa, and dozens upon dozens of others, leaves a stale aftertaste in his mouth, like betrayal.

And just like Will knows Hannibal's secret, Hannibal knows Will's, knows that Will knows and knows that Will, in some way, doesn't resent it. Maybe even likes it.  
And just like Tobias Budge was serenading Hannibal, Hannibal is serenading him, in the same brutal way. Or at least, Will believes he is, because there has been a series of crimes which no one can seem to solve, intimate, somehow; men and women laid out on beds with arched backs and gaping mouths, hands clutching at the sheets. They are naked and covered in carefully cleaned marks, traces of kisses and sucks, of fingers gripping too tightly and teeth biting down too hard. And they would look as if in ecstasy, if not for the large wound in their torsos.  
Organs are missing from each of them, and Will knows exactly what happened to them.

Because then there is another thing which Will knows and should report, but doesn't: Hannibal has been eating his victims, or parts of them, and has most likely been feeding them to him, to Jack and his wife and Alana and every other person who he has cooked for as well, and yet the thought doesn't touch Will; doesn't upset him but leaves him numb.  
Maybe it's the shock, it would be possible, would be likely, and yet Will doubts it.  
Most likely because it's strangely impersonal, to a point where Will can think of the taste of liver and kidneys and something which Hannibal has called pork, without even flinching. It had tasted strange, but wonderful, and Will can't help but wonder if it did because deep down he had known what it was. A secret which Hannibal was sharing with him, without saying a word.  
There is no disgust, but instead Will finds that he is jealous of everyone else who has been told Hannibal's secret through carving and biting and chewing. Their secret.

It might be the most fucked up thing he has ever said or felt or thought, and yet Will can easily accept it, live with it, because he is used to fucked up, he is used to wrong and crazy and completely, absolutely mental, but mostly because while this is something which would get him sent to the next psychiatric ward, there is something so much worse lurking behind it.  
It's behind his eyes every time he closes them, on the edge of every thought, every glance at the victims, every breath. He's jealous, jealous of people who have been brutally murdered, because they got to feel Hannibal's touch before they died, because he just knows that the older man was soothing them with sweet words and smiles which should be directed at Will and no one else.  
And because they now will forever be part of Hannibal, in a way which is far more intimate and intense than any lover's touch, and Will finds that he wants that, too.

It's Hannibal's touch he wants, the kisses and words, the embraces and marks; he wants to know how the other looks when he loses himself to pleasure, and yet that is not all of it. He wants to be fused with the other in a way which will make it impossible to part them again, he wants Hannibal to always carry a piece of him around, wants to be integrated in his every cell.  
Will wants the same thing for himself, too, wants to carry a fragment of the older man with him wherever he goes, but he's being doing that for months now, because before Hannibal, there never has been someone who rearranged him, changed him as much as the other did.

And so sometimes, when he can't stop himself quick enough, he imagines that it's him laid out on one of those cheap motel beds, with his legs spread wide and a thousand love bites on his thighs, his neck and shoulders (which would be cleaned of any trace of saliva by the time they found him), a gaping cut on his chest and his lips parted and maybe smeared with the red of his blood.  
In his fantasies, Hannibal kisses him goodbye after he is finished, softly, and just before he leaves, his heart stored safely away for Hannibal to keep. It's always his heart, because it would be the only thing which would fit, because if Will were to kill Hannibal, it would be the other man's heart he would take too.

Sometimes, Will allows his thoughts to go even further, thinks about how Hannibal would prepare him, his heart, if he would do something special because it's Will, or if he would be just a piece of meat like everyone else; he wonders if Hannibal would wake up and feel different the day afterwards.  
He wonders if Hannibal would be sad to lose him.

It's only a fantasy, of course it is, and yet it is one both tempting and soothing, because one day, one day far into the future, he is going to tell Jack, will have to, and they will lock Hannibal away somewhere. Maybe he'll be able to visit from time to time, but it won't be the same with bars or a wall or a window between them. He won't be able to feel the other's touch, and it might be the most selfish thing he has ever thought, but he might be willing to die for a kiss, but what is even more frightening, he might be willing to let other's die for it too.

Because without him, the FBI will never catch Hannibal, and Hannibal won't stop unless he is forced to. So with every day he allows to pass, Will is killing people and even that doesn't faze him, doesn't sound like a reason important enough to give this up.  
Because they are still dancing, with and around each other and Will needs to see them crash and burn and destroy whatever is left of each other's sanity and if it's his life he has to put on the line for it, then he'll do it gladly, since this time, he doesn't know how everything will unfold and it is glorious, this battle for dominance (since, stripped down to the bones, everything they do is just that, a fight, a duel with minds instead of swords), to the point where Will doesn't even know who he wants to win.  
Not because both alternatives would scare him, but because they both sound so appealing in their own ways.

If it's going to be Hannibal who breaks first, Will might just be able to keep both of them alive, if not sane, if it's himself, he'll be able to look at the other taking him apart completely, finally crushing what is left of him.  
There is a cruel, twisted beauty in the thought, because Hannibal is the one who knows him best, and the one who would be able to take what pieces Will is made of and put them together in a new, better way. He wouldn't, though, and Will knows that, because the second he breaks, he won't be of interest anymore, but that's alright as well, because Hannibal might pick him up nonetheless , if only to use him to stitch up the other's own damaged parts.

And it's a thought Will likes more than he would admit, because it would be him keeping Hannibal together and not the other way around, and so, even if the other never knew, he would have won. Because he would have changed Hannibal forever, given the other a piece of himself he would never be able to get rid of again, and right after carrying Hannibal around inside of him, it's the next best thing.


End file.
